This image was selected as a picture of the week on the Malay Wikipedia for the 1st week, 2010. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I know one of my readers (you know who you are) reported to me that 2012 has been one of the most profitable years despite the obvious Depression the United States and quite possibly the World has been under. I know there are still people out there desperate for jobs, food, a helpful and hopeful answer to the many questions that they may have regarding their fears, doubts and worries in these economic times. Those of you who remember your American History, if you remember anything about “The Great Depression“, probably remember sitting through movies or Documentaries depicting folks during “The Great Depression” in hovels (“Hoovervilles“), maybe in boarding home situations or other living conditions.

The American people, many of them, banded together to help one another out. Even if they didn’t like their living conditions or want things to be that way, they did what was necessary and humanely just for their fellow-man and it helped them to survive and get by. They shared their meals and what little they had with one another. Granted, there may have still been some crime during this time but I don’t remember hearing much about it. No; instead I heard stories of camaraderie and how the people demonstrated their distaste with President Herbert Hoover for not keeping to his word after making so many promises to the American People.

However, when I look at the way things are today from over the course of the last two years I’ve seen a significant increase in crime, violence and bullying. Just to name a couple of major stories I’ve heard or seen on the news be it National or Local – The Aurora Theater Shooting & now the Connecticut School Shooting. Something I don’t understand is why there is a rise in Bullying. Is it truly because there are too many people being “Bad Parents” and not setting boundaries for their children like they should? Is it because of the Economic Depression and how it has affected families across the nation?

Great Depression Food Line (Photo credit: Kevin Burkett)

I wish I had a definite answer for why this is – but I don’t. I don’t understand it is all it comes right down to. I do understand the crime thing though. People are probably thinking, “Desperate times, call for desperate measures,” or maybe it’s like the song by Cage the Elephant; An’t no Rest for the Wicked, “Oh there an’t no rest for the wicked, money don’t grow on trees! We got bills to pay, we got mouths to feed – an’t nothin’ in this world for free! Oh we can’t slow down, we can’t hold back, though you know we wish we could. Oh there an’t no rest for the wicked, until we close our eyes for good.”

Who really knows but what I do know – is this. When times are tough, there is no EXCUSE for the kind of violent, hurtful and hateful behavior we have seen. The only times we seem to show remorse or band together for something is when there is a natural disaster or a significant tragedy that makes us go, “Oh crap! My life could be so much worse now like theirs. I’m glad it’s not“. Does something like these events honestly HAVE to happen to invoke our sympathy? Our empathy? Our Humanity? Our ability to reach out to our fellow-man and offer them a hand when they’ve fallen and are having difficulty standing on their own two feet?

English: Buried machinery in barn lot in Dallas, South Dakota, United States during the Dust Bowl, an agricultural, ecological, and economic disaster in the Great Plains region of North America in 1936 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Honestly, it shouldn’t. It really shouldn’t but it feels like this is what it takes for us some of us to extend our Goodwill, our sense of community, togetherness, coexistence now in the world. Are people and society that so far of touch with their sense of Humanity, Honor and Integrity? Perhaps. But – I like to believe we aren’t. I like to believe there are still a great number of people out there who still, pardon my french but – give a DAMN about their countrymen, about their neighbor, about a stranger and their well-being.

I very much like to believe people have not lost all sense of their Humanity, Sanity and Common Sense. They are just looking for the opportunities to enact their Goodwill, Kindness, Compassion and more. You don’t always need to do something BIG to make an impact on a life. No. In the song, An’t No Rest for the Wicked, they say, “An’t nothin’ in this world for free,” that’s not true. A person in touch with their Humanity knows that. No – you can give a Kiss, a friendly hug, a pat on the back, maybe a meal, an ear to listen, a kindly word, a compliment – you can give your unconditional love, kindness, compassion, tolerance, understanding, empathy – for free. It may not seem like much – but it could mean the world to someone.

community (Photo credit: planeta)

Some people put a “Price Tag” on everything or like to. In reality, as they say, “All the best things in life – are free“. I once gave a man my meal. I could tell he could use it and it was during this last December when I made my 1st trip to Seattle for the month. The look on his face and his thanks was enough and it made me feel so good and wonderful. I was happy to extend a helping hand to my fellow-man when he was down, even if it was not much and was quite small, but it was still appreciated. That’s Humanity at work. That’s the reward.

This year, 2013, I strongly encourage you to reach inside yourselves, find your courage, compassion, understanding, empathy, Humanity, tolerance and more – muster it and put it to good use. I CHALLENGE you to try to do what you can to help your fellow-man. Let us banish this “Depression” once and for all and let’s show it whose boss! We are Americans (replace with your own country of citizenship if you like)! We are a strong, proud, tenacious, loud, stubborn lot (replace with the positive traits of the people of your country & for the next part too). We don’t take things lying down do we? No; we stand up and we fight for what we know is right. We fight for what we love. Let’s really make an effort to do this. Be vigilant and focus on what could go “right” vs. what could go “wrong“. Be a Hero – for you, someone you love, someone you don’t know.

A closeup of a hug. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We should be learning from our Past, our mistakes, from other countries and how they do or run certain programs and things and improve, forgive or apologize for what we’ve done wrong. It’s time to put the crap aside folks and walk towards a better, brighter and beautiful future that is waiting for us. We can and will get through this and believe me – your bliss is out there waiting for you to come and seize it by the horns and not let go. Go find it! Those who love you will support your endeavors. Visualize it, feel it, believe it. Trust yourself, have Faith in you and the “Powers that Be” that all that’s good and right with the world – can also happen to you.

Thank you for reading my blog, much heartfelt love and appreciation for doing so. Questions, comments, concerns, your own personal thoughts or feelings on this blog? Feel free to post a comment about it. Any topic ideas suggestions you’d like to see me possibly write about? Feel free to leave a comment about it and I’ll get back to you. :)

Share this:

Like this:

Related

Nicely written and I agree. The power to be kind and understanding exists within each of us and shouldn’t need to be provoked by some event or catastrophe. It really boils down to the fact that we are each here for a relatively short period of time. Why not make it the best possible time spent? Here’s a post from my blog you might find to be along with what you’ve written here:

Wow! Thank you so much. I think that’s like my second best comment I’ve gotten since I started my blog! Thank you I really appreciate it. :) I definitely read your blog post and I read one other. You’ll see a comment even on it. Careful it’s a long one. lol You’ve been fairly warned!

As a blogger, I know how important and exciting it is to have people comment/participate in what you’re writing. I’ve looked at ten gazillion blogs around WordPress and other blogs and it was refreshing to see one that has compelling content AND efforts made in editting and proofreading. Nothing turns me off more than readding a blog post with poor diction and lousy, irrelivant content, spelling errors, etc. Writing is a passion for many, but it has to be approached from the standpoint of readability and good, compelling content. Cheers to you for completing that checklist!

I always encourage and appreciate comments on my posts. You also did a nice thing by asking your readers to provide topics for future posts. Keep going, girl, and you’ll be a superstar on the blog front soon! I hope to get there someday, and make writing a career, but it’s a very difficult thing to do.

You have no idea how long I’ve been trying to get more of my readers engaged! I think it just goes to show, just because it says I have 150 people following my blog, doesn’t actually meant that’s how many actually do “read” my blog in the first place. It is counting my Twitter Followers and my Facebook fans, which I think is a little unfair if they don’t legitimately follow/read. *shrugs* That’s just me.

However, I do feel the few who have engaged me goes to show that there are a handful of people who actually do care for what I read and actively participate in “Liking” some of my topics and commenting on them. Which I’m just “pleased as punch” to get a comment typically on my work. heh :D

Well I have to say, as much as the proof-reading and editing process makes my eyes want to “glaze” over, I know it’s important. I do my best to catch the mistakes where I can, but I’m not perfect and I do miss stuff. The most important element in my work to me is that my writing is “understandable” to my audience and that they can pick up on the obvious “Author’s Voice”. Any good Writer worth their salt though should know to edit their work. I’d think that’s a given.

I only write about what interests me most, that I’m passionate about and that I feel other people might or will find interesting, even if only a little. Content to me is the other part of my writing process. If I don’t think it makes for an interesting story I can write about, I scrap it and find something else. I never write about anything I don’t have some knowledge or confidence in writing about, this has been my track record thus far. I’d like to keep it this way.

I really appreciate that you like my work and the efforts I put forth in my content and diction. That made me like – warm and fuzzy on the inside. I know that’s silly but writing has not always my strongest talent and as I grew older became more so because I was determined to make it a strength rather than a weakness. So this means more to me than you know.

I’m glad you like the new thing I started on the bottom of my blogs by asking my readers for help on topic ideas. I thought, since I don’t always know how to engage my audience, how about I give them another opportunity to participate by helping provide some inspiration for my writing, if possible? Sounded good to me and I didn’t think people knew I was willing to hear out possible requests for potential topics. So I wanted to open that door or let them know it was open.

Thank you again for your thoughtful comments they are much appreciated! :D _/\_

Gwen, totally agree with you. An interesting footnote regrading the great depression is that the famous American novel depicting the hardships you describe – The Grapes of Wrath – was banned in Russia.

The reason given was that the global marketing for the book, and the book’s cover, AND the main characters that are depicted as the poorest of the poor in America traveled around “in an automobile”. Thus the communists saw it as blatant capitalistic propaganda, that “in America even the poor drive cars”.

During the time of the Great Depression, it is thought that a relative few people actually owned cars since there were not many used models as of yet, and the cost was almost half of a household’s yearly income and today’s credit economy didn’t existing meaning one would need to save for years to buy a car. Statistics on auto ownership did not start till the 1960’s and at that point only the upper middle class, 1/3 of the country, owned cars.Thus the family truck that the characters in the Grapes of Wrath lived out of that is depicted in the novel, and what has become a sort of symbol for the Great Depression, is really a capitalistic myth.

It also raises questions about truth/history when we look back at such events and I find it hard to separate fact from fiction. The modern equivalent of this phenomena is Hollywood movies and tv shows which consistently depict poor and lower middle class families in homes that are far larger, filled with newer things, and owning cars that rarely mesh with actual reality. In time these will begin to replace the reality that you describe in your blog about our time now, and what people are actually going through, and people in the future will point back in time and say look how great the American capitalistic economy is for folks – everyone drove a car, owned a home and could afford gas and eating out all the time…

I’ve actually never read that book before but I’m glad you shared what you did from it James. Thank you!

Now that you mention the automobile thing I have known friends and people who have often said, they were once so poor or ARE so poor that they are/were living out of their cars. I think it would be a very sad day in history if people thought that the stories depicted by Hollywood and television were all true (though some are loosely based on facts). Anyone with enough Common Sense knows that they aren’t – but I also know there are people out there who DO believe such things.

That’s when I start to question peoples sense of being able to know the difference between “Reality” and “Fantasy” because that can lead to problems in real life as well as any good man or woman would know.

Wonderful write up, as per usual, and I can only assume it was my comment that you mention at the beginning? If so, I’m glad that I could inspire this amount of reflection. :)

That said, the United States is in a strange way, and has been for quite some time. Believe me when I say that I feel like I am, in a phrase, “taking crazy pills.” It feels like the rest of the country is losing their minds: someone shoots up an elementary school, and around the country gun shops sell out of the model of rifle that was used in the shooting? How does that many *any sense at all?*

Politically, we are hugely divided. Our government has all but ground to a halt — our do-nothing Congress won’t even authorize money to provide aid to those devastated by Sandy — and we have a polarizing media that seems to revel in the libel of those they see as different from us.

Sometimes it’s really heartbreaking. It really is.

*Around the world*, however, more and more people rise up out of poverty. That is a magnificent thing, and I hope that it continues. Horrible things happen every day, but whenever I see the smallest sign of humanity I get a bit of hope: helping an old lady across the street; returning lost goods to their owner instead of keeping it for themselves; donating a few dollars to charity; simply *not being an asshole.* There are so many things that can be done to bring a tiny bit of light into the world, and I think more people are willing to do that than the media tells us, because scandal sells; kindness does not.

I have hope for the future. Hope for a brighter tomorrow for us, for our children, for our childrens’ children. It’s always darkest before the dawn, and in many ways it’s been incredibly dark lately. In my heart I know things will get better, and we can live in peace, where everyone can truly *own* the smile on their lips. :)

Thank you so very much Echonaut. Yes; that was you I was referencing. I just didn’t say cause I wasn’t sure 1) It was okay I used your username for reference point 2) I didn’t wish to, dare I say, inflate any possible “Ego” balloons. *Dramatic gasp* :O :) I tease on that last one…though it’s “kind of” true. Just a smidge.

I know what you mean. Either the “Crazy Pills” or it feels like people are just trying to bury their heads in the sand and pretend nothings happening until the storm is over, waiting for something “better” to arrive to peek out for and pull them out. Being in denial though won’t change anything and I know that. I hope a lot of other people do too. In order to make changes we have to be “actively” trying to change.

I didn’t hear about Congress not issuing any relief to Sandy Victims. That sucks! :( I know I’ve been praying every night since it happened for those effected by Sandy. I’m really glad I’ve been doing so. I wonder if they didn’t because of the “Fiscal Cliff” thing, because they didn’t wish to raise the “Debt Ceiling” or something else. Honestly, I think it may be the something else. :( Though that could be my slight “bias” as far as their track record goes.

Can’t forget some of stories about the congressmen and women getting together and having flat out bicker fights like children. *Face-palm* Made me want to ask, “Uh, are we children? Cause I don’t remember hiring a bunch of children to run my country”. Hate to insult the kids cause I know they can be pretty smart, but there has been a lack of control, respect, restraint and willingness for cooperation. I hear that’s changing now, slowly but surely.

As for the news, I try NOT to watch it. I can’t stand watching something that brings me stories that are almost always so negative. Maybe some people like to think, “Gosh I’m so lucky that’s not me today,” but I rather think about what I DO want and not what I DON’T. It’s that whole “Law of Attraction”. Trying to stick to it. ;) Not to mention it can be disheartening and depressing.

I agree, it can be very heartbreaking and it’s another reason why I wanted to do this post. I wanted to show people that there are people out there who still carry a “Torch” of Hope. That they still believe in the core values of who they are and what their country and ancestors stood for. Sometimes people need a reminder. In order to look inside and find their own strength. I know I’m like you – I see an act of kindness – brings a smile to my face, makes my heart feel light and the Hope is renewed, burning brighter and stronger than it did before.

I do hope our country is next to stand up and say, “This is our American, we’ve had enough and we aren’t going to take this crap anymore!” and people actually get out there and DO what they know they can do whether peaceful protesting, rallies, writing letters, reaching higher into their businesses corporate ladder to restore family values and Humanity to them – just, something and anything. I’m one person, I can’t do it all – but I know what I CAN do. This is part of it. ;)

Same. I know our dawn is coming. I can feel it and just sense it. It’s there waiting – biding it’s time, but it’s coming and I hope it is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful! :D

Karmic Connections

15,507 lookie-lues

Follow My Journey!

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.